Luke 5:27-35

Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners

27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him,

28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus Questioned About Fasting

33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”

34 Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?

35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”

Cross References

• 1. S Matthew 4:19
• 2. ver 11; S Matthew 4:19
• 3. Luke 15:1
• 4. Acts 23:9
• 5. S Matthew 9:11
• 6. S John 3:17
• 7. Luke 7:18; John 1:35; John 3:25,26
• 8. John 3:29
• 9. Luke 9:22; Luke 17:22; John 16:5-7